Technology Implementation

Everything we buy these days seem to have more and more add-on widgets. However, many perhaps do not have the thought put into them that perhaps they should. From a systems perspective many fail the basic logic that one would expect.

One such example would be the inclusion of time spent in 'Park' when it comes to determining true fuel consumption in the Mitsubishi Pajero. Too much time spend with the car idling away whilst you test the trailer lights, keep children and the fridge cool in the driveway as you prepare to go on holiday means you get figures like these:

Perhaps I am suffering from too much time in the business sector. I am amazed at the pressure exuded now on small business owners to 'blog their way to success' using their blog to demonstrate their prowess to potential customers and win them over as clients.

It is amazing though how hard core the people who take up their gauntlet are. They make bold claims about their success from this and many ply the pressure onto their clients and readership to take up and do the same. These past few months I have felt this pressure immensely.

Below is an Open Letter to Ben Liau, Channel Development Manager at Planet Domain regarding registration as hosting and domain name reseller. The original email came in yesterday. I am interested to know - has anyone else has had similiarly poor service from PlanetDomain?

Dear Ben Liau, Channel Development Manager

This is an Open Letter.

Planet Domain wrote:

> We have noticed there has been no activity in your account since it has been open.
>
> Please let us know if you would like to keep your account active, and reasons why.

I do not wish to keep this account active. In fact, I requested that my application as a reseller be rescinded over 12 months ago.

In the first instance, I applied as a reseller online. In the week following I received no emails to provide me with access details or any 'how-to' instructions. After a week I contacted Planet Domain and was told there was nothing that the help desk staff member could do without a manager (who was not present at that time). For the two months thereafter I called weekly either hanging up after being placed on hold for over 15 minutes or being given similar reasons - that the help desk staff members could not resend any details, that he could not access any details (since I had no ID to give them) etc. Each time I asked for my call to be returned by someone who could assist me if I wasn't already told to call back later and hung up on.

From there my calls dropped to monthly asking to speak with a manager who was not ever available. Over a year ago now I requested that my registration be cancelled. I was told that it had been. As a result I assumed that it had and have not thought about it since.

This email confirms that since my registration several years ago, which I undertook myself, I have recieved absolutely no support or service from PlanetDomain in this respect for several years even though I had paid for this service.

> If we do not get a response from you in the next 5 days, your account will be deleted from our system.

Please do.

Concerned at your poor service,
Kristy Bennett

Both Michael and I will be glad to see the end of three weeks of hacking the Drupal E-commerce Module.

It has been an uphill battle with what initially seemed to be a promising application. So why pay for it when you can get it free? Here are just some reasons that come to mind...

Broken, broken, broken

The hardest thing with Open Source design is finding applications, modules and plug-ins that have been engineered properly with one person who controls where the project is going and what is adopted into it. The problem seems to manifest itself quite obviously when a functionality request comes in. Oh so easily, one of the developers simply hacks together a section of code to provide that functionality without full consideration of the overall product and the need to sustain it's integrity and then simply release it. The need for a holistic view always needs to be in the mind of the lead developer at all times and nothing should be included without serious consideration of the big picture. This section of my rant is reminice of a keynote entitled 'Sex *and* Violence: Technical and Social Lessons' given by Damian Conway at Linux Conference Australia in 2006.

Pain, pain, pain

I am not sure how many people out there get post stress migraines but I do. So each time I was told that an aspect of this application now worked as required I went to bed, slept soundly and awoke the next day with a screaming head ache only to find that something else was broken. Rightfully, fixing one bug should not then cause something that is a different and unrelated function to break. Someone ought to teach me how code something so mashed that this occurs in the first place - it is an art I am sure. To me paying means less personal pain - it becomes someone else's problem when it doesn't work.

Delays, delays, delays

Every bug means a delay in release. During the past three weeks we have dealt with over a dozen bugs, some trivial, some worth posting patches (which we have). I believe we averaged somewhere between five and seven hours fix-time per bug and another two hours added to testing for each bug identified subsequently. Let's just say it's been a long few weeks and we don't want to look at another shopping cart again for a long, long time!

Murphy's Law

Murphy's Law says that anything that can go wrong will go wrong. We got the module working, secured, tested and implemented. We loaded the site, it all worked, went back to set up some redirects and the hosting service broke. So we sought some new hosting this afternoon and hopefully my next post will be a far brighter one with some awesome news...

"Open Source products and associated services should be charged out to customers at a price as high as the market will tolerate whilst maintaining a viable client base."

Agree or disagree, I am putting this to you at OSDC. I am scheduled to present at 2.30pm on Tuesday for anyone who feels like having their business principles challenged! The presentation itself is titled 'Capturing Competitive Advantage'.

See you there!